Originally Posted by
hombre
Hello,
Wondering if there are any DFW vets out there who could assess my chances of successfully making a 29-minute connection? Not legal, of course. I'm flying LAX-DFW, scheduled arrival 2:05pm. I'm ticketed on the 4:36pm to SDF. But I am noticing there is a 2:34p departure from DFW- I'd love to be able to get on that flight, which would get me into Louisville early enough to make a 7pm event. I'm just wondering what people think my chances are of making that earlier (2:34p) flight? Or if anyone has any hacks specific to DFW which might help. On my first leg (LAX-DFW) I am seat 13D on a 777, meaning I should be able to disembark fairly quickly. And I have flown through DFW a handful of times so I'm familiar with the AirTrain. I'm travelling Christmas-time (Dec 20) so that probably won't help.
Echoing what has been said above - AA won't give you this as an option given the connect time (as you mentioned, it's not legal), the shortest that is possible is 30 minutes (and that's Terminal E to Terminal E, which probably isn't a valid possibility now that the ERJs are gone and regionals use either E or B, but I digress), otherwise it's 40 minutes, so you're not going to be able to change to it before you get to DFW (you might be able to find a helpful agent that will add you to the standby list before, but I don't have experience with that so I cannot say the likelyhood). As such, you'd most likely be asking the agent at the gate to add you and clear you from the standby list, at the gate in DFW, and standbys are usually all cleared before boarding, so you'd have to get to the gate, have the agent add you, and then hope that someone misconnects. With AA's push for D0 (door closed on time), agents will likely not be willing to add someone to the list at the last minute (I've been told the cutoff is 15 minutes before). If you are able to get added before getting to DFW, there's also the issue of agents not clearing standbys that aren't present. I've noticed lately that standby pax are being called up to the gate in order as shown on the list before they show as cleared on the app, aka the agent is making sure standbys are present before clearing them (so they don't have to remove them if they aren't at the gate for whatever reason), and as you won't be at the gate before boarding starts, you may get skipped over (if the agent does this ofc).
If you were trying to make a connection where you have a confirmed seat, I'd say give it a shot if you really want to, but as you would be standby, your chances are pretty much one in a million, and I'd look now at changing your flight out of LAX if you really want to be in SDF by a certain time.